Lisa Scottoline

Inquirer Columnist

Lisa Scottoline and her daughter Francesca Serritella write a column, Chick Wit, for The Sunday Inquirer's Arts&Entertainment section. Lisa is a New York Times best-selling novelist with some 30 million copies in print worldwide. She won the Edgar Award for suspense writing, and is the president of the Mystery Writers of America. She is a Philadelphia native who lives in Chester County with four dogs, two cats, and several chickens. Visit Lisa at www.scottoline.com.

Francesca Serritella graduated cum laude from Harvard University, where she won the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, the Le Baron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize, and the Charles Edmund Horman Prize for her creative writing. She is working on a novel, and lives in New York with only one dog, so far. Visit Francesca at www.francescaserritella.com.

It's a harmless-looking rubber band that comes in cute colors, fits around your wrist, and tracks your activity during the day. In other words, it can tell in real time whether you have been sitting on your butt like me, or whether you have been engaging in something called exercise.

It doesn't know if you've been naughty or nice.

But it does see you when you're sleeping.

You can wear it to bed, and it can even track your sleep and tell you when you're restless.

Restless is code for got-up-and-went-to-the-bathroom.

The Fitbit comes preset with goals, like, for example, 10,000 steps, and when you've walked 10,000 steps a day, it vibrates.

Think of it as a vibrator with a PG rating.

In other words, a lousy vibrator.

My Fitbit is hot pink, and I got it as a birthday gift from my best friend, Franca, who reaches 10,000 steps by seven o'clock in the morning because she's a runner.

You could reach 10,000 steps by making 627 trips to the refrigerator, but that would not be in the spirit of Fitbithood.

OK, I admit I did that on the first day, but not the second. Because what started to happen is that I did more activities so I could get credit from my Fitbit.

I wanted my Fitbit to approve of me.

I'm not only a people pleaser, I'm an inanimate-object pleaser.

Yes, to gain my Fitbit's love, I actually engaged in exercise. I rode my bicycle for six miles and walked the dogs for two miles.

By the way, my dogs do not have Fitbits.

They don't Fitbite.

And after my exercise, I raced home, hurried to my desk, and synced up my Fitbit with the computer, which is one of Fitbit's features. All of a sudden, pretty colored banners started flying across my monitor screen, reading HOORAY, LISA!

By the way, the Fitbit computer display can also tell you how many calories you burn a day, but I don't look.

I want to keep the romance alive.

HOORAY IN GENERAL!

Also, I don't need a bracelet to tell me I should lose weight.

I have a mirror for that.

And there's a reason nobody's making a mirror that straps to your wrist.

Another Fitbit feature I ignore is that you can connect online with other people who have Fitbit, called your Fitbit Friends, and this will enable them to see your activity levels.

I don't want Fitbit Friends.

Anybody who wants to know how many steps I walk a day isn't anybody I want to know.

If you follow.

You can even buy a Fitbit scale, which will connect wirelessly to your Fitbit bracelet and a fitness app on your phone, so that all of the inanimate objects you own can talk about how fat you are behind your back.

Needless to say, I declined.

But in no time at all, I was wearing my Fitbit every day, doing as much activity as I could, and checking my progress every night on the computer. Banners flew, badges were awarded, and my spirits soared.

GO, LISA, GO!

I actually lost a pound without meaning to, which has never happened in my life and might in fact be a typographical error.

But then one morning, I tapped my Fitbit to wake it up and it wouldn't wake up. I tried recharging it, resetting it, and doing everything I could, but it was dead. I went to the troubleshooting section of the Fitbit website, and if you've ever been to the troubleshooting section of any website, you know what happens.

You want to troubleshoot yourself.

That was a week ago, and without Fitbit to clap for me, I'm riding my bike less and barely walking the dogs at all.

I gained my pound back.

My world went from hot pink to blue.

The solution?

I might be crazy, but I'm going to buy a new one.

I know I can love again.

Look for Lisa and Francesca's new collection of humor essays, "Have a Nice Guilt Trip," in stores now. Also, look for Lisa's new novel, "Keep Quiet."